The many faces of Veronica The Wolf

Taken from the spring/summer 2020 issue of Dazed. You can buy a copy of our latest issue here

“There’s a lot of dumb legends about being a werewolf,” says enigmatic model, actress and lycanthrope Veronica Schulz. “But I’m passionate about tons of stuff beyond my fur-care routine and full moons. I love dressing up as different creatures to the max. It’s a weird girl tradition – Cindy Sherman is, like, the leader of the pack. I can’t ever be ‘normal’, dude, but I can transform myself into something else alone in my room and not just be the girl with the freaky disease.” Here, Veronica shows off her favourite costumes from her Narnia-sized wardrobe for us. “It’s kind of an addiction,” she confesses, grinning to reveal those killer fangs. “It’s magic.”

VERONICA AT THE OPERA

Veronica Schulz: I love opera: it’s so extreme! Magic flutes, dark wizards, singing goblins – and they’re all six hours long. The Cocteau Twins are basically opera with hallucinogens and reverb and I love them, too. The costumes are so beautiful it hurts: like, this witchy dress I’m wearing is so heavy you feel like you’ve been sucked down into hell. I’m praying for an opera queen’s death. Maybe I’ll burst into flames. Or be smothered with roses by a psychotic faun. I mean, it beats having a stroke while you rake the leaves.

VERONICA AT THE BEACH

Veronica Schulz: There’s this isolated cove off Coney Island where some deformed carnies dumped toxic waste in the mid-2010s (hence the purple sand): that’s my favourite beach in the world. I go down there with my cherry-flavoured DepressionExorcist® vape juice and a frozen version of the cocktail that I invented (‘Neon Slime’: it’s demonic), and chill like a corpse. The water keeps my fur sleek; the pollution makes sundown dreamy and provides a hot ’gram backdrop for all the illegal fireworks. I like to impersonate a classic nymph when I’m there – bubblegum bikini, unicorn-blonde wig – but I also scent myself with roadkill to attract a mate. Wolves of the Coney Island area, come to me.

VERONICA THE DETECTIVE

Veronica Schulz: Post-Midnight Chrome (Safdie Bros’ comedy where Veronica was a fun-loving pyromaniac), I got lured into this high-concept ‘Generation Z noir’ Netflix show called Blood Moon. I play a teenage sleuth who works at a kennel by day and solves mysteries by night. I dressed up as a detective when I was in LA anyway, tailing plastic surgery addicts that looked like mutant waxworks. I was down for the show, theoretically: tons of dry ice and dream sequences.We shot the pilot, nothing else, but there’s an alternate dimension where it’s adored by about eight weirdoes.

VERONICA UNDER THE SEA

Veronica Schulz: Like a lot of suburban stoners, I killed time at the aquarium. 85 per cent of my memories are floaty and luminous and haunted by mysterious seahorses. I don’t think a snorkel and goggles are nerdy diving accessories: I like to give my underwater shenanigans a scientific air. I haven’t met a mermaid yet but, with the oceans transforming into acid-streaked graveyards for endless garbage, it’s not long till one magically washes ashore. Thanks, humanity.

VERONICA THE PIRATE

Veronica Schulz: I spent an entire summer of my childhood as a pirate. I was crazy for the wardrobe in Hook, and it was the perfect distraction from my parents’ divorce when I felt too sad to survive on land. I ran amok in a hair-metal periwig and lurid pantaloons exhumed from my Xanax-addled mom’s closet, battling inflatable crocodiles on storm-tossed seas localised entirely within our swimming pool at home. I still want a pirate husband so we can swashbuckle and indulge our mutual jewel-encrusted tchotchke and/or rum addictions together – in my mind he’s A$AP Rocky (shiver me timbers!) and we’re making my ex-boyfriends walk the plank.

VERONICA AT THE BALLET

Veronica Schulz: Ballet was my thing as a cub. My great-grandmother, Sylvia Morgendorf, was a ballerina in a lycanthrope dance company in the 1920s: I used to try and contact her via the poltergeist living in my iPhone. She’s buried in Cypress Hills, Queens, near Houdini’s tomb. Supposedly, they were lovers: go Sylvia! There’s a bronze cast of her ballet shoes on her grave… little silk pumps with her claws sticking out: it’s so cute but so sad. Here I am rehearsing a ballet called Devil’s Zoo.

VERONICA THE COWGIRL

Veronica Schulz: Yeehaw! I always imagine my cowgirl self is lonesome, probably because she roams through spooky, endless desert, or because the regular cowboys are solitary dudes plagued by confusing sexual urges. Tragic, huh? Anyway, she could be reciting a soliloquy to a cow skull at twilight while tripping on psychedelic cacti: Dead Man vibes. (You can turn cow skulls into gift baskets when the holidays come.) Last time I did hallucinogens in the desert, some coyotes told me I’d puked my own shadow. That was rough AF.

VERONICA THE MAGICIAN

Veronica Schulz: I used to go to this magic club on Sunset a lot – The Gilded Bat – and watch the performers. The magician’s wardrobe hasn’t changed since, like, 1896 – white gloves, top hat – unless, like me, you consider The Riddler from Batman Forever to be a bonkers rave remix of the magician. Magicians are pranksters, and pranks are deep: maybe reality isn’t what you thought. Maybe when I get bored of modelling, I’ll retrain as a magician and disappear in a puff of smoke. That’s the ultimate magic trick.